Vegan MoFo 2017 Day 31, Last day. Vegan Trunk-Or-Treat

Hey, so I am able to post after all.

Tonight I went dressed as a silly unicorn lady and gave out Surf Sweets vegan gummy heart candy and lollipops to a bunch of vegan kids. I also decorated my trunk with a unicorn, “vegan love” theme. I knew most people would do stuff that was scary or animal themed, so I wanted to do something different that reminds us why we’re vegan: because we have compassion.

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My favorite local vegan business, Like No Udder (ice cream), was there too handing out free cones. They offered a choice of orange creamsicle with chocolate pieces or cookies and cream in cones.

I didn’t know many people there, but it was nice to give out candy to the kids and see their costumes. I was so happy to be able to do something like this because as far as I know, this is the first all-vegan Halloween event for kids in our state. It was put on by Rhode Island Vegan Awareness as well. I’m so glad kids and their families will now have a safe and fun all-vegan event to go to that they can trust each year.

I didn’t take photos of the other trunks except for one. This trunk belonged to the president of RIVA, who also is named Laura (see my post from yesterday for more on RIVA and Laura), and since I knew she’d give me permission to post it, I felt comfortable asking to take a picture to post. They were parked right next to me.

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Pretty cool, right?

Happy Halloween, and hope you all had a great Vegan Month of Food! I’ll be back posting stuff after a quick break, not as frequently as I did for MoFo, but hopefully more frequently than I was before it started.

And I’ll definitely keep you all updated on the progress of my Vegan Unicorn Book.

Be sure to check out the Instagram account, @unicorns.eat.vegan for more stuff like what I was doing this month! Plus soon I’ll be posting about some cruelty-free craft ideas!

And, as always, if you haven’t yet “liked” my facebook page for Banana Curl, Vegan Girl, go ahead and do so! I usually post when I make a new blog post, and sometimes some other stuff, so it is definitely a good way to keep on top of my updates.

XOXO

Laura

Vegan MoFo 2017 Day 30: Vegan Halloween Party Recap

This post might seem a little all over the place. I’m tired and excited and I’m still recovering a bit from how awesome my birthday ended up being. This evening I went to a Halloween hot yoga class dressed as Wonder Woman. It was SO fun. I was so impressed with the soundtrack. It was choreographed to our yoga practice! I’m a little yoga high as well.

Anyways, today I’m here to share another Halloween event I went to. It was an all vegan Halloween Party hosted by the nonprofit group Rhode Island Vegan Awareness (RIVA).

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Of course, I went dressed as a unicorn:

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Since I know most of you are here for Vegan Month of Food, I figure I’ll talk about the food first. When we arrived, the tables had a smattering of delicious vegan gummy candy from Surf Sweets all over them and some chips and hummus. We had dinner soon after, and there was a gluten-free option that I had. It was pasta, pizza, and salad and they gave us a lot of it! There was the option for seconds too, but I was pretty full. Towards the end of the night, they passed out 2 packages of Justin’s Peanut Butter cups to each guest. It was awesome! I had been refraining from buying them the week before because I had heard a rumor we were getting them at the party.

The event was planned as a fundraiser for a vegan billboard that will be put up in Providence. This party was able to fund it and I’m excited to see it.

RIVA’s president is also named Laura. Together we make two vegan Lauras. She went as Belle from Beauty and the Beast alongside…well…her partner the Beast. Haha. Here’s a picture of the two vegan Lauras together. “The Beast” took our photo! Thanks!

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RIVA did a great job organizing and running the party! Not only did we have food, but there was a cover band, vegan vendors, dancing, a trivia and costume contest, and raffles. I also got an astrology reading done in honor of my birthday. She gave me some great advice based on my chart and shared lots of stuff about me that helped confirm some life stuff I’ve been considering taking action on. I am going to keep it cryptic for now, but maybe I will talk about it sometime in the future. I was really glad I got to see and talk to her.

Oh! There was also a really awesome spoken word performance by my new friend, who I happened to carpool with after Laura had asked if someone could help with a ride for them. The piece was about how annoying it is to be asked, “where do you get your protein?” Even though most of us vegans often complain about hearing that question, the performance was still really inventive, funny, and well put together.

Oh! and there was a couple that dressed as B-12 and won the best vegan themed Halloween costume! I got such a kick out of it! If you go to RIVA’s facebook page and look at the pictures of the event, you might see them, amongst some other really awesome costumes! RIVA’s Facebook.

Anyways, I’m super tired from all this activity lately. I really hope I am able to post my last Vegan MoFo 2017 post tomorrow about the vegan Trunk or Treat event, but if I get home too late it might be a challenge. If I don’t make it in time, I will post November 1st, even though it won’t be the same.

Happy Halloween everyone! And Happy MoFo if I don’t post tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

 

Vegan MoFo 2017 Day 29: My birthday!

Hey, everyone, it’s Laura here.

Shh, don’t tell Fluffy this, but I have some bad news. I didn’t realize until yesterday that there is already a famous body-positive unicorn named Fluffy. I’ve never seen it, but supposedly they are in a Despicable Me movie. So, I feel like I will need to change their name in order to publish my book without problems. If anyone has some good ideas for unicorny ideas, let me know! I’m going to do a big brainstorm and I want it to be something more creative than Fluffy and perhaps a bit less frou-frou sounding, but also short and sweet. A challenge!

Anyways, I missed posting yesterday because I was busy getting ready to attend a vegan Halloween party last night! I had a great time, it was so much fun, and I was able to post a Halloween themed Instagram photo of some cookies I made earlier in the month. Check it out on IG @bananacurlvegangirl.

The next few days of posts are going to be Halloween themed. Tomorrow I will do the recap of the party, and hopefully, if I can make time to post before midnight, on Halloween I will be doing a recap of the vegan Trunk or Treat event I am doing.

Then Vegan MoFo will be done for the year! This year’s experience has been awesome. Thank you to everyone who has liked my posts, commented, or followed me on social media! I know I’ve mostly been posting unicorn stuff on this blog’s Instagram account, but after MoFo is over I’m going to go back to posting all my unicorn stuff on a separate account I made @unicorns.eat.vegan. The blog’s account will go back to posting more general vegan foods and baked goods. So be sure to follow the unicorn account if you wanna see where this project ends up going.

Anyways, today’s post is all about ME!! What, is it my birthday? Yes! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

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The picture above is the most epic card from my brother. Let’s give him a shoutout, because he also helped me execute my design for the Vegan Food Should Be Fun graphic that I like to post:

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Yesterday’s theme was brunch, but I did that today. With my mom. At my favorite vegetarian restaurant that almost everything can be made vegan at. The Grange in Providence, RI. I totally cheated on my limiting gluten and went all out by ordering the chickun fried seitan and waffles, pictured below.

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Omg, it was so good. And since I’m kind of sick of cake from this month of food, we got a pumpkin glazed vegan donut for later to go. I haven’t looked at it yet, but maybe I will post it later on IG.

I also went to the mall and got some workout clothes and Lush cosmetics goodies. Oh, and a Lavender iced tea from Teavana.

I’m kinda taking it easy now because I’m super tired from last night. I did some relaxing, tarot card reading, and other mellow stuff. Now I am writing a blog and later we shall go out to eat again. I’ve only had one meal so far today, but that one meal was amazing!!

Tomorrow I also plan to go to a hot yoga class dressed as 70s Lynda Carter style wonder woman, I cannot wait!

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Vegan MoFo 2017 Day 27: Meals for the young (at heart) unicorn bento

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Obento is the Japanese art of lunch making that is not only healthy and delicious but also visually appealing. In the United States where I (Laura) live, bento box lunches have caught on a bit, although they often don’t follow the Japanese tradition as much, which usually has a good portion of the meal as rice.

I love looking at pictures of creative bento boxes. They have bento box pictures for almost any animal or cartoon character you can think of. I especially like when the compartments of the box all work together to create one image, but I’d say that’s a more advanced bento artistry skill than where I am at now.

Usually the pictures I see feature nonvegan foods in them, so naturally, I was interested in contributing some vegan pictures of bento box lunches.

I know when I was in school as a vegetarian, other students used to make fun of my lunches because they looked weird or I ate different kinds of food. Though I don’t have kids of my own, I wonder if, especially with younger ages, bringing colorful and artistic bento lunches could get vegan kids to feel more comfortable at lunchtime. Other kids would hopefully be curious and excited to see what’s in the child’s lunch every day, especially if you take a creative approach to it. It would lessen the chance of bullying, and even maybe get them interested in vegan food.

It does take a bit of planning and time, although, it actually took me less time to make it than most of the meals I make for myself.

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The bento box I used was from PlanetBox (of which I get no benefit from promoting, I just liked them) which is an eco-friendly company. They have several different styles and come with little sealable containers as well. Each box style has the option to get decorative magnets included (free of charge). Obviously, I chose the Rover for its rainbow unicorn magnets. It appears that those magnets are currently sold out on PlanetBox’s website when I just looked, I wonder if they’ll be making them available again or not.

Because I wasn’t going to be taking my lunchbox anywhere or letting it sit in the fridge for awhile, I may have been able to get away with a little more. I wonder how transporting the food would work. I think the compartments keep the food well separated, but it did say in the instructions that came with it to put particularly juicy or runny foods in sealed containers rather than let them be freeform. So, that’s something to keep in mind if you’re going to use it as an actual lunch. I like the structure and challenge creating a bento box provided me. It helped me think differently about creating a complete meal.

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Here is what I did with mine:

  • I made a vegan coleslaw and added extra purple cabbage to make it more worthy of a unicorn.
  • I placed a tea sandwich shaped like a unicorn and decorated it with sriracha. For kids, I’d recommend some other squeezable sauce unless they like sriracha and spiciness.
  • I took the unicorn corn-on-the-cob holders and used them as skewers for rainbow fruit salad. You could use toothpicks or other decorative pointy items as well. Just remember that most schools have a no-tolerance policy for anything that resembles a weapon, so don’t go putting them on fake mini-swords or something. Use common sense, know your kids’ schools’ rules. If you want to avoid the skewer idea, you could use small cookie cutters and cut fruit into shapes.
  • I made some kettle popcorn out of kernels in my Whirley Pop. When it was all popped, I mixed in melted vegan butter, purple colored sugar, sprinkles, and a kettle corn flavored popcorn shaker that I got from the grocery that happened to be vegan. It came out delicious. If you want to save time though, buy a bag of kettle corn and add sprinkles of your own.
  • I put Just Ranch in a container for dipping gluten-free pretzels in.
  • I put a few Surf Sweets vegan heart-shaped gummy candies in the middle. You could also put some vegan fruit snacks, a small amount of rainbow colored candy, small cookie, etc.

 

There are many more options! Get creative.

Other items that would be neat:

  • Rainbow dipping veggies (especially if you can find some baby purple carrots)
  • Hummus or nut/seed butter
  • Rice or noodles
  • Salads (greens, potato, pasta, etc)
  • Vegan hot dogs/sausage (you can make them shaped like octopi by cutting them into small pieces horizontally and then cutting legs with vertical cuts
  • Tofu scrambles or tofu no egg salad
  • Breakfast for lunch with some kind of colored pancake in a cool shape or design or as a pancake sandwich, options are unlimited
  • Etc.

There are lots of bento box props, tools, and other neat stuff you can buy online or in stores. A lot of Asian markets will have stuff like this as well as bento boxes. Small cookie cutters, squeeze bottles, containers, cupcake liners, stuff found in the baking section of craft stores, pretty printed parchment paper, foil, old toys, etc. can all enhance your design or serve a function in the bento box as well.

Remember, as Fluffy says:

Fat Unicorn

 

 

 

Vegan MoFo 2017 Day 26: Showstopping dessert pizza

Today’s MoFo daily theme for the weekly theme of entertaining is showstopper dessert.

Well, I certainly have one that will stop me, Fluffy the Vegan Unicorn, from having a movie made about me. Yes, it’s that amazing.

May I present you, a recipe for Dessert Pizza.

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Makes 1 huge cookie enough to serve 12 people

Can be made gluten free

This recipe puts my top two favorite things together: pizza and dessert. Except not in a gross, unappetizing way.

My pal Laura remembers a similar recipe from her childhood: a humongous chocolate chip cookie covered in crispy melted marshmallows and candy. Heavenly!


It makes a great gift for all occasions. You can even put it in a leftover (clean) box from your vegan pizza if you have one to make it even more fun.

This recipe works best with a delicate balance of candy, especially with Unreal vegan chocolate quinoa gems, and sprinkles on top of mini vegan marshmallows (Dandies makes these and you can find them in most grocery stores. If you can only find the big ones, be sure to cut them up into smaller pieces before using them). Be careful not to weigh down the cookie with too many toppings.

This comes out really sweet and rich, which is delightful for unicorns who are known for our sweet teeth! Humans, especially the little ones, may get a tummy ache if they eat too much at once.

Ingredients:

  • 1 tablespoon flaxmeal
  • 3 tablespoons warm water
  • 1/2 cup white vegan sugar
  • 1/2 cup organic brown sugar
  • 2/3 cup melted refined coconut oil
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour or for a gluten-free version, Bob’s Red Mill All Purpose Flour
  • 6 oz vegan Food Empowerment Project (F.E.P) recommended vegan chocolate chips
  • About â…” of a bag of Dandies vegan mini marshmallows
  • Other vegan candy like Unreal’s vegan chocolate quinoa gems, peanuts, chopped up candy bars, etc.
  • Plenty of rainbow sprinkles!

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Whisk the flaxmeal with water in a small cup. Let sit and whisk several times until gelled. Voila! Magic vegan cookie binder. Now mix together the sugars, melted coconut oil, and flaxmeal binder. Slowly and carefully stir in the baking soda and flour. Sprinkle the chocolate chips into the batter. Now it’s time to make a giant cookie bigger than the face of a human! On an oiled and large flat baking sheet or pizza pan without holes, place the dough in a ball on top. With your fingers, press the dough into a thin, round, giant cookie the size of a smallish pizza crust. When the crust is formed, place handfuls of marshmallows in the center spreading outwards. Leave about an inch of cookie naked so it looks more like a real pizza with a defined crust. Sprinkle candy, peanuts (optional), and sprinkles on top. Remember not to overload it with toppings, this calls for a delicate balance. Keep it beautiful looking and it won’t be a melty gob of goo. Pop this wonder into the oven and bake for 10-12 minutes. Let cool completely. Using a cookie cutter, slice into pizza shaped portions. Devour or bless someone with an amazing dessert pizza as a gift.

 

Vegan MoFo 2017 Day 24: Finger Foods fit for a Unicorn Tea Party!

Hey. It’s Fluffy the Vegan Unicorn back again!

Unicorns love most finger foods, even though we lack fingers.

However, humans will especially like these unicorn-shaped tea sandwiches. Whether you are having a tea party to honor me with your fanciest and prettiest plates, silverware, desserts, tea, etc., or just like a really simple and delicious vegan tea sandwich, these will be a perfect addition to your sandwich repertoire.

These are so simple they don’t really require a full recipe.

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The ingredients are:

Your favorite vegan bread, preferably thinly sliced (Laura used Dave’s Killer Bread’s thin-sliced White Bread Done Right organic bread). Also, make sure the cookie cutters will fit the slices of bread you will be using.

Thinly sliced cucumbers

Tofutti cream cheese

Sriracha, to taste or as needed for decorating.

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First, cut two slices of bread with a unicorn cookie cutter. Make sure they face the same direction. Remove any unsightly crumbs or crust that may still be around the cookie cutter. Unicorns like clean edges.

Next, carefully spread a good amount of the Tofutti cream cheese on one side of the unicorn bread.

You can either spread a small amount of sriracha on top of the cream cheese or use the sriracha as a way to decorate the sandwich once it’s fully assembled. Unicorns like to give people lots of options here.

Then, top with cucumber slices. Depending on the shape of the unicorn cookie cutters, you may need to slice some of the cucumber rounds in half to better fit into the sandwich.

Repeat until you have completed your menagerie of unicorn tea sandwiches. I mean, you have enough to serve your tea party guests.

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These sandwiches are also really great in kids’ bento lunch boxes, which we will be talking about this Friday for the Vegan MoFo theme of meals for the young (at heart).

Laura has been eating these sandwiches almost every day since she discovered their deliciousness, that I worry she might turn into one!

Until tomorrow, stay unicorny!

XOXO

Fluffy

 

Vegan MoFo 2017 Day 23, Week 4: Entertaining

And we’re back, folks! It’s Laura, here.

It was nice to have a quick posting break over the weekend.

Boston VegFest was actually a real bummer this year. There wasn’t really anything new or exciting, and it was more crowded than ever. I mean, it was so crowded that you literally had to push your way through people to move. And, most of the time it was really hard to even see what any of the vendors were selling or the nonprofit groups were sharing. I ended up getting so frustrated. My favorite food to get at Vegfest is from Belmont Vegetarian, but even that was slightly disappointing because they didn’t have as much selection as they did last year for their dishes. I think they had half of what they usually offer. It was still really good though. I didn’t take any pictures, sadly.

Luckily, the day was redeemed by going to the Museum of Fine Arts after. They had an amazing Haruki Murakami exhibit. He’s been one of my favorite modern artists since high school.

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See? Instant mood brightener.

Anyways, on to MoFo business, now that I am back from the break.

Today is simply an introduction to the week.

This week’s theme is entertaining. It’s going to be a bit of a mix of entertaining things for me.

Tuesday I’m going to be posting about unicorn-themed finger foods, Wednesday I’ll be posting only on Instagram and will keep it a surprise (or maybe I will also post the photo here with a bit of text…who knows),  Thursday will be a unicorn-friendly showstopping dessert pizza, and Friday will be a kid’s food post with an elaborate unicorn bento box.

The weekend through Tuesday will be gearing up for the ultimate in entertaining since it’s my birthday Sunday and Halloween on Tuesday. Most of this will still probably be unicorn themed a bit since I’m going as a unicorn for Halloween and doing some really fun Halloween stuff this year, like going to an all-vegan Halloween party on Saturday and participating in an all-vegan trunk or treat event on Tuesday which I plan to infuse with unicorns at every point.

I decided after making all the cakes and sweets I’ve made for this MoFo that I don’t want cake for my birthday which may be disappointing to some, but I’ll try to figure something out instead.  Maybe a trip to Like No Udder, Rhode Island’s (where I live) own vegan ice cream shop, is in order if I can fit it in.

Excited to share what I have in store for the last week of Vegan MoFo! I heard a rumor that we may lose power due to a storm tomorrow, so if I’m not around tomorrow as promised, that may be why. I promise I will catch up in my own way if so.

 

 

 

Vegan MoFo 2017 Day 20: Hipster Stuff

Hey there, Laura here.

I had a really hard time thinking of what kind of a dish I could deconstruct and be in line with the unicorn theme. In fact, I wasn’t really 100% certain at first what a deconstructed dish was or why it was considered “hipster.”

I had decided a while ago, that for today, I’d do some kind of post about coffee since I feel like hipsters are gourmet coffee snobs. I was even going to try to make a vegan version of bulletproof coffee or whatever–you know the kind that people blend butter into? But, I got stung by a bee in my finger yesterday and was in no mood to do so this morning, especially since the reaction I had made my stomach act up for some reason. I guess we can’t all have the constant positivity of a unicorn.

I did, however, want to share this really cool company I recently found that makes deliciously flavored coffees. I emailed them when I found them to verify the coffee was vegan, and they said all their coffee is, even the ones that say the flavor is some kind of “creme”. The “creme” flavors are actually made with soy according to the person from their company that emailed me back.

The company is called Coffee Shop of Horrors, which is perfect for this time of year. They are based out of Florida.

Anyways, I was super excited because they have a coffee flavor I’ve been wanting to exist for a long time but had never been able to find. Peanut butter cup! It was delicious, we just used the bag up today. And I also bought a waffle and syrup flavor which I am excited about trying and this toasted coconut flavor:

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Which, although it is not a unicorn, is a siren/mermaid creature, which is also pretty mystical and rare.

Then I realized earlier this week, that I accidentally made a salad from the cookbook Salad Samurai by Terry Hope Romero and it was basically a deconstructed samosa.

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So, there you go #VeganMoFo, hipster food in a deconstructed dish. It’s not in line with my theme, but, yeah. Oh well.

Oh, and I might not be posting for the next two days or so. Tomorrow (Saturday) I am going to Boston Vegfest and Sunday I was planning on having a break, but who knows for sure. You’ll probably get some kind of information or recap from VegFest at some point.

Vegan MoFo 2017 Day 19: Minimalist White Chocolate Fudge

Today’s theme is Minimalist (5 ingredients or less!) vegan recipes. May I present vegan white chocolate fudge fit for a unicorn! This stuff is really good, and it’s almost as hard to find vegan white chocolate as it is to find a unicorn, so it seems fitting. I usually get culinary cocoa butter online, but I believe places such as Whole Foods sell it in the nutritional supplement/superfoods section. Just be sure you’re buying food grade and not cosmetic grade as I believe there is a big difference between the two! 

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Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

  • 3 cups cocoa butter (I used a brand that was recommended by Food Empowerment Project)
  • 1 can sweetened condensed coconut milk
  • 2 cups organic powdered sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • Toppings of choice such as Dandies Mini Marshmallows, a variety of freeze dried fruit slices, crushed up cookies or candy, sprinkles, etc. I used Sweet and Sara’s rainbow cereal marshmallows I got before they announced their closure.

Directions:

  1. Melt the cocoa butter and condensed coconut milk until all the cocoa butter bits are liquified. It will become a bit of a golden brown liquid, that’s okay.
  2. Slowly stir in one-half cup of the powdered sugar at a time until smooth and no longer clumpy. Unicorns don’t like clumps.
  3. Grease an 8×8” pan and spray the bottom and sides with a nonstick spray. You may also want to line it with parchment paper to make it easier to remove from the pan later.
  4. Pour the liquid fudge into the pan. Spread the toppings across the shiny surface. They should float to the top like a mermaid who has come to the surface of the ocean.
  5. Make sure the top is pleasing to the eye, cover, and place into the fridge for at least 2 hours or overnight until set.
  6. Slice into cubes and serve.
  7. Store in the fridge in an airtight container for up to two weeks.

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Vegan MoFo 2017 Day 18: Unicone cupcakes

Today is chocolate cupcake day, one of many of my most favorite days.

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These chocolate cupcakes are stored in an edible container. Ice-cream cones! They’re easy to make gluten free as well if you have a good chocolate cake recipe and gluten-free cones. We actually used gluten-free wafer cones with the gluten-full flour in the cake.

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They were topped with a vegan buttercream frosting mixed with a bit of acai powder to give it a slightly purple tint, sugary sprinkles, and a dollar store lollipop that had the stick mostly cut off as the unicorn horn.

This is an easy way to reinvent your favorite chocolate cupcake recipe. When baked in the cone they may come out a bit fudgy in the middle, which makes it even more delicious. If you try this, be sure to rest the cones filled with the cake inside muffin tins so they don’t fall over.

Personally, I’m not sure how unicorny these look, but they’re still cute. And delicious.